In telecommunications, the term “triple play service” or “triple play” refers to the provision of three services, namely, high-speed Internet, television (i.e., video-on-demand or regular broadcasts), and telephone service, over a single broadband connection by a service provider (“SP”). Triple play service is offered by cable television operators as well as by telecommunication operators. For a telephone local exchange carrier (“LEC”), triple play service is delivered using a combination of optical fiber and digital subscriber line (“DSL”) technologies to their residential customer subscriber base. This configuration uses fiber communications to reach distant locations and uses DSL over an existing plain old telephone serve (“POTS”) twisted pair cable as last mile access to the subscriber's home. Cable television operators use a similar architecture called hybrid fibre coaxial (“HFC”) to provide subscriber homes with broadband, but use the available coaxial cable rather than a twisted pair for the last mile transmission standard. Subscriber homes can be in a residential environment, multi-dwelling units, or even in business offices.
Using DSL over twisted pair, television content is delivered using Internet Protocol (“IP”) television (“IPTV”) where the content is streamed to the subscriber in a MPEG-2 (“Moving Pictures Expert Group”-2) transport format. With IPTV, digital television service is delivered to subscribing consumers using IP over a broadband connection. On an HFC network, television may be a mixture of analog and digital television signals. A set-top-box (“STB”) is used at the subscriber's home to allow the subscriber to control viewing and order new video services such as movies on demand. Internet service is delivered via asynchronous transfer mode (“ATM”) or data over cable service interface specification (“DOCSIS”), typically provided as a 10BASE-T (i.e., 10 Mbit/s baseband over twisted pair) Ethernet port to the subscriber. Voice can be delivered using a traditional POTS interface as part of the legacy telephone network or can be delivered using voice over IP (“VoIP”). In a HFC network, voice is delivered using VoIP.
Some service providers (“SPs”) also provide Ethernet-to-the-home and fiber-to-the-home networks which support triple play service and bypass the disadvantages of adapting broadband transmission to legacy networks. This is particularly common in green field developments where capital expenditures are reduced by deploying one network to deliver all services.
Triple play has led to the term “quadruple play” where wireless communications is introduced as another media to deliver video, Internet, and voice content. Advances in both code division multiple access (“CDMA”) and global system for mobile communications (“GSM”) standards, utilizing third generation (“3G”), fourth generation (“4G”), or universal mobile telecommunications service (“UMTS”) mobile telephone technologies, allow service operators to provide quadruple play services. The grouping together of services (such as triple or quadruple play) is referred to as “multi-play”.
It has been said that the main challenges in offering triple play relate to backend processes and subscriber support. With respect to technical challenges, voice, video and high speed data all have different characteristics and place different burdens on the network that provides access to these services. For example, voice services are greatly affected by jitter, whereas packet loss or packet reordering has a greater affect on video and data services. Using a shared network resource such as cable or DSL requires that the network equipment used employs quality of service mechanisms.
With respect to subscriber support, subscribers are beginning to demand access to their triple play services through whatever device they may be using at a particular location. The services that a subscriber may wish to access at a first location may be differ from the services that the subscriber may wish to access at a second location. In particular, the services available at the first location may differ from those available at the second location. For example, a television equipped with a set-top box may be available at the first location while a cellular telephone may be the only available device at the second location.
With respect to customized user interfaces in general, United States Patent Application Publication No. 2004/0098360 by Witwer, et al., (“Witwer”) provides a user-created life portal for viewing and accessing content on the Internet. The platform, referred to as a life portal, is configured by the user to display only content that is of interest to the user, thereby reflecting the personality and life of the user. The content displayed in a life portal is scraped from web sites and is not limited to sites licensed or maintained by the life portal service provider. The content is displayed as a view or a magazine. Views and magazines (content) are stored in life pages. A view is content that is contained in a portlet and is retrieved from a single web site. A magazine is a collection of content, such as article headlines and links, on a particular topic from one or more web sites. All content in a life portal is specifically tailored to meet the targeted interests and preferences of the user and is designed to exclude content not of direct interest to the user. Thus, while systems such as that provided by Witwer may provide interface content that is based on user interests and preferences, they do not provide an adequate user interface for accessing triple play services that may be location and/or technology dependent.
A need therefore exists for an improved user interface for accessing triple play services. Accordingly, a solution that addresses, at least in part, the above and other shortcomings is desired.